Oh, Brother, What A Duel

Nba Series Is Classic Matchup: Good (orlando) Vs. Evil (miami)

What has 32 arms, 32 legs, weighs more than 3,000 pounds and uses a quart of Pennzoil a day?

The Miami Heat and Pat Riley.

. . . Ba-dum-bum.

Where, as a percentage of the population (and if you dared to look), would you find more pot-bellied, pasty French Canadian tourists in Speedos; more killer drivers in BMWs; more condo commandos; more corrupt politicians; more corporate welfare recipients; more beach tar between more toes; more retirees with names like Jimmy ''Cheese Fingers'' Calzone; more overturned, empty Brinks trucks; more shopping carts registered as weapons; more teachers skipping school; and more irascible folks whining about matzo prices and early-bird specials?

My brother's home - South Florida.

In case you haven't heard, the battle of the century is upon us. And this is a call to arms.

It is not a time for the faint-hearted. It is not a time for subtlety. The Orlando Magic-Miami Heat playoff series that starts this week is nothing less than civil war.

It is a test of wills between two city-states. It's for all the marbles, folks - not just for the right to say ''My team is better than your team,'' but to boast with pride, ''My megalopolis is better than your megalopolis!''

It pits Hardaway against Hardaway. Disney World against Wayne's World. Newspaper against newspaper.

Brother against brother.

Ray Recchi writes columns for the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida. He is a good man. He tries hard. His mother loves him. And he works for a decent newspaper that, someday soon I'm sure, will win a Pulitzer.

I work for The Orlando Sentinel, which has won two Pulitzers. The Sun-Sentinel is my sister paper. Ray is my older brother. His mother is my mother, who loves me best.

Which may be why this otherwise sensitive and rational person has seen fit to walk into my house and trash my team and my hometown.

This will not stand.

I have decided to respond to his insults in a way that befits my stature and training. After all, I am not a columnist who can spout lies without attribution. I am a news man who prides himself on using facts to tell a story.

I am also an honorable man, which is why I will not sink to revealing my brother's more embarrassing peccadilloes just to gain the upper hand in this fractured version of ''He Said, He Said.''

For you readers in South Florida who hoped I would take advantage of this opportunity to embarrass Ray - well, you'll just have to read between the lines (he wets the bed) because he is still my brother, and I still love him (he snores like a grizzly). There's a higher calling here (he has a Dave Barry inferiority complex), and I intend to prove that my escape from South Florida 16 years ago was the smartest move I ever made (he scratches himself in public).

Nope, juvenile insults will not win the day here (he's never even been to a Heat game). Instead, I will use the most modern newsgathering tool at my disposal - computer-assisted reporting - to prove once and for all that Magic players and fans are superior to Heat players and fans (he once won a ravioli-eating contest, then puked). And that the war for Florida hegemony is all but over (I grew my beard first). It's just a matter of time before Penny, Nick, Rony, Horace and 3-D drive the Heat and its fans into the Atlantic (he's looking up hegemony at this very moment).

The fans: After analyzing mountains of demographic data, my computer spit out a profile of the typical Heat fan: an aging but happy man with wide eyes who wears Nikes, worships the Hale-Bopp comet and has no privates.

The typical Magic fan: A young, earnest golf pro who just became the most available man in America by winning the Masters and inspiring the entire country.

Advantage: Orlando.

The coaches: Pat Riley is the winningest coach in pro sports. He's an author and a motivational speaker who looks like Kirk Douglas and wishes he were Gandhi (more on that later). He's the Heat's Dapper Don.

Richie Adubato is a gruffy 59-year-old kid whose players love him (for now). He has spent four decades coaching at all levels. He tended bar to supplement his modest income as an inner-city school teacher. He wears outrageous ties. He does a great impersonation of Jose Jimenez.

You would think Riley would have the edge here. But just recently, someone detected a soft spot in Riley's steely makeup. Can you say midlife crisis? This confident court general with an ego like Patton is turning to mush, lamenting to a reporter last week about the ''social relevance'' of his job.

''I work in the toy department of human affairs,'' he sighed, ''and therein lies the greatest contradiction in my life.''

Oookay, let's take a look at Pat's playpen: an estimated $15-million contract; a $6.3-million waterfront mansion with an outdoor fireplace on a two-acre estate featured on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. And a $300 per day meal allowance.

Tell it to the fans, Pat. They'll tell you to get a life. Or to join Mother Teresa. The man's distracted.

Advantage: Adubato.

The players: For our final analysis, we turn to the teams. Man for man, they're pretty even. Penny Hardaway and Tim Hardaway are equally dangerous. Miami and Orlando both have clutch outside shooters and strong bench players.

This war will be decided in the paint. Alonzo Mourning vs. Rony Seikaly - two talented centers who have played to a draw during the regular season.

It's the intangibles, then - heart, intelligence, life experience - that will make the difference here.

Seikaly is urbane and well-traveled. As a boy, he barely escaped war-torn Beirut with his life. He gave up $2 million just to escape Golden State for Orlando.

Like Mourning, he's tough and gritty.

Unlike Mourning, though, he can curse and spit at the refs in four languages.

Advantage: Orlando.

So there you have it. In every category, Orlando kicks butt.

Now, let's all go home and pay heed to Mama Recchi, who asks: ''Why can't you's all just get along?''